Reality: The Mirage of Lights
by Sikar
Summary: The second book in the Reality series: Captain Allen and crew return. In the wake of the Borg war, two old enemies of Picard have surfaced, and when their horrific plan is complete, there may be nothing to stop them. M for violence, language, sensuality.
1. Preface

**Preface**

The following novel is a sequel to my book "Reality: The Borg War", which detailed the account of how I ended up where I am today. For those of you who didn't read that account, allow me to summarize.

My name is Michael Thorne Allen. I was born in the year 1981, in the thriving metropolis of Dayton, Ohio. I grew up there, went to college there, and eventually ended up living my adult life there, working as a salesman in a men's clothing store.

That is, until the day I left.

I was taken from my place in time – from my very universe – to a place that had before only existed in two places: my television set and my imagination. The universe of Star Trek, which as it turned out was a real place, became my new residence.

I know; it sounds like a bad fan fiction story, doesn't it? That's what I thought, too. But it was real, and I learned in very short order just _how_ real. We – that is, myself and about four thousand other "Trekkies" from my universe – had been brought to their reality to help them in a battle against the Borg, the Federation's (and indeed perhaps the Universe's) most feared enemies. To say the very least, it was an epic struggle. Billions died, and among them was my best friend, Jerry Foster.

Jerry and I had grown up together, and were brought into this new reality at the same time. We even served aboard the same starship. But in one of the final battles against the Borg, he was prematurely denied the right to further existence.

Ultimately, the war is permanently etched into my mind; it is a dark place that I sometimes go to in order to remind myself that there is a price to be paid for everything. This is not to say that everything about the war left a bad taste in my mouth. I had many adventures along the way, some of which were (in retrospect, of course) quite fun.

To say nothing of the fact that I ended up falling in love.

Anyway, the point is that after all was said and done, and we had defeated the Borg, I was given the choice of remaining in the service of Starfleet as the captain of my ship, the _Ascension_. Naturally, I said yes to this offer, and have been a captain ever since. That was many, many years ago now. I sit here, having just barely completed the book about my first mission, and feel the urge to go on. I feel like everyone back home (that is, you the readers) ought to know about the things that have happened in my life. It has certainly not been a dull one since I came here. For the sake of your patience, I think that I'll try to make the continuing stories read a bit less like a report and a bit more like a novel (Julie used to call me the biggest self-critic she'd ever known).

The only question is where to take up the line at. After all, the first several months after the war was over were nothing but dull. Starfleet, while granting me a continuation of my captaincy, certainly did not entrust my ship with very many important missions for a while. Rather, they sent us on routine survey missions. These were brutally long, which had the added effect of giving me the time I needed to complete my holodeck Academy training. In a word, it was boring, and certainly not worth talking about.

Ah, but perhaps it would be best to start shortly after that, with the incident I like to call the "Mirage of Lights". Yes, I think that will do very well. I hope you will enjoy the tale.

--- M.A. San Francisco, Earth 2345


	2. Prologue the First

**PART ONE**

**THE ARCHAEOLOGIST**

**Prologue The First**

A heavy, dark gloom had settled over the manor. It was a cold April afternoon in the north of London, and the rain came down, as it so often did, in a steady and heavy way. Plumes of thick fog had pressed their icy fingers against the windows of the manor earlier, blocking the view of the crisp morning from sight. Now, however, the fog had receded, and the man could make out the dim forms of trees on the veranda through the translucent sheets of rain.

He sat before a crackling fire, his head bent low in dark thoughts. A thick cigar burned idly in one hand, wafting smoke toward his downturned face. Suddenly, he sensed the presence of another person in the room. He slowly raised his head.

"Have you come to 'rescue' me?" he asked, a tinge of bitterness in his voice.

"Something like that, yes," the man behind him said. His timbre was a rich baritone, and the man in the chair could tell without looking that this was a man of some military bearing.

"You know, then, that it is impossible to extradite me from this place?"

"Not impossible," the man behind him said, stepping forward from the shadows. He dropped something in the sitting man's lap, then sat down in a chair a few feet away. "Just a little difficult, is all."

The man glanced at the apparatus in his lap. It was a banded cuff of some sort, clearly meant to be worn on the arm. He considered briefly putting it on, but then eyed the stranger warily. He had existed far too long to be fooled into giving away more of his already scant freedom. He looked at the ashen-grey face of the stranger, who sat rigidly – almost regally – in his armchair.

"What is it?" the man asked, trying to hide his curiosity.

"The key to your freedom," the stranger answered.

"I've been told such faerie tales before," he said. "Why should this time be any different?" He drew from his cigar, turning over the cuff in his hand as he did.

"Because this time there is a catch," the stranger said. That caught the man's attention. He looked at the stranger in mock bewilderment.

"And how might I be of service to you in return for my freedom?" he asked. The stranger smiled thinly.

"I need you to bring me the man who imprisoned you."

The man considered this for a long moment. It sounded far too good to be true. Then again, he supposed that this was as close as he would ever get to breaking free of his seemingly-eternal prison.

"I will do it," he said with an affected air of superior indifference.

"Excellent," the stranger said, standing. "Please place that cuff on your arm, then. It will allow you your freedom, while also allowing me to know where you are. Take it off, and you will die."

The man slowly eased the cuff over his wrist, sliding it up to his shoulder. Something inside the cuff made a short burst of noise, and then it lit up. The stranger smiled again.

"That will do just fine," he said. "Come, let us get you out of here."

He spoke to the wall, and a door appeared from thin air. He walked through, turned, and gestured for the man to do the same. The man stared for a long moment, contemplating his mortality. Then he boldly stepped forward. And for the first time in the history of his existence, Professor James Moriarty exited the Holo-world and entered the real world.


	3. Prologue the Second

**Prologue The Second**

Jil Orra was dead now. Gul Madred could be certain of that. He had seen her body, and presided over her funeral. He had spent many nights in her room, sobbing in the anguish of a father who suddenly finds himself bereft of his offspring forever. Every night in his dreams, he had remembered each detail of her emaciated face, and every morning he had risen to find himself drenched in sweat and tears.

She had not had an easy passing. No, fate was too cruel for that to have happened. Rather, he had been forced to watch her starve to death. In the wake of the Dominion War (a war he never would have supported, if he had ever held any real power), Cardassia had been left in ruins. There had been promises of aid from the Federation, but those promises had been cut short when the Borg attacked the Alpha Quadrant a year ago. Madred, who had been stripped of his title several years prior, had been living on Cardassia Prime, in the small town of Nurkat.

It was a quiet place, and if there was some consolation to be had for him, it was that Jil Orra was free to roam about as she liked, playing with the other children of the town, with little to fear.

But then came the Dominion War.

In its aftermath, Nurkat had been left in ruins, as had most of the surrounding countryside. Madred had found himself unable to even leave the place, much less charter any sort of transport. The only official word he had received was that all available transportation was being used in an effort to stabilize Cardassia. Small hamlets like Nurkat were overlooked, their peoples living in abject destitution. Slowly – oh, how slowly! – people began to starve. Nurkat had no means of subsisting, as all of its supplies normally came from the larger cities. Some of its denizens tried to leave, but the isolation of the town kept them from getting very far.

Unrest turned to madness, and soon people were locking themselves inside their houses, for fear of looting parties, or worse. Madred had never actually seen it happen, but there were whispers throughout the town of acts of cannibalism. He hadn't really believed it at the time, but he was also not one to play things dangerously.

Especially when it came to Jil Orra.

He had taken her into the house and sealed the entrances. They had had enough food for only a few days. Madred had rationed it out, giving Jil Orra nearly all of it. Hunger had set in when it was gone, but the violence in the streets had gotten worse. More and more, it had looked as if there would be no way out. He had known they could not stay here, but also he knew that leaving the city – even if they could – would get them nowhere.

So, he had been forced to watch his daughter die slowly.

At the back of his mind, he had supposed that this was all very fitting. After all, he had been an information-gatherer for the Cardassian military before being deposed, and many of his techniques for questioning prisoners very closely reflected what he saw on the face of his daughter. But he could not think about that for very long. It would have driven him mad.

Instead, he had focused on his father's duty, which was to comfort the small child as she starved to death. He himself had grown quite weak as the time wore on and no one came to their rescue. But he was stronger than his child, and one morning he came into her room to find that she had succumbed to the agony of starvation. In a way, it had almost been a relief to see her suffering at an end, and many times since then he had hated himself bitterly for that relief.

The worst thing of all was that she had died only a few days from rescue. Madred had locked himself in her room and had taken a position by her side in her small bed. He had resigned himself – was in fact welcoming the fact – that they should die together as father and daughter. He was weakened nearly to the point of not being able to move.

That was when he had heard the transports, and the shouting. Someone had finally come. At first, he had not moved from his spot. He had nothing to live for anyway. But as he lay there, he had cast his memory back, trying to find some catalyst for all that had gone wrong. He did not want to die blaming himself for all of this. He had supposed that he could blame Cardassia for its stupidity in joining with the Dominion, and that had satisfied him at first.

But he knew that there was more to it than that. The real trouble had begun years ago, when he had been stripped of his title.

Officially, it had been done to purge Cardassia of any seeming guilt in a border dispute with the Federation. Madred had been under orders to interrogate a Starfleet captain – one Jean-Luc Picard – in an effort to gather information about the Federation's defensive strategies for Minos Korva. Picard had resisted him mightily, and somehow his crew had managed to uncover the missing pieces of Cardassia's plot, and had found a way to exploit it. In doing so, they had also found a way to extradite their captain, who had the singular distinction of being the only person to ever successfully resist – much less survive – Madred's methods of interrogation. Somehow, Madred had always felt that the official answer had been inadequate. The Cardassian military had read his report on Picard, and within a week he had been taken away from his position and sent to Nurkat. The thought had burned itself into his mind that he had not been deposed nearly so much for political reasons, as for the fact that he had failed with Picard.

Before Jil Orra's death had brought about a fresh set of nightmares, Madred's dreams had often been haunted by Picard's final words to him as he had been led away from the interrogation chamber. Madred's method of extracting information had been to deprive Picard of food and water, and to inflict pain on him regularly with a subdermal device. Additionally, he had set up four lights behind his desk, and would insist to Picard that there were five. When he would ask him how many lights he saw, if Picard answered four, he would use the subdermal device. At the very end, just when Madred felt sure that he had finally broken the captain, and that Picard would now give him the answer he desired, the guards had come in to take him back to his ship. In a hateful, triumphant gesture, Picard had looked into his eyes and shouted, "there are four lights!"

Thus it was that as he had lay there dying beside his daughter, the realization struck him that he should be avenged for the loss of poor Jil Orra. Yes, that was it.

He had risen, with great difficulty, from the bed and opened his house to the rescue teams. They had taken him to a safe place, and he had brought along the body of his daughter, which he buried himself the next day.

In the months that followed, Madred's title had been restored to him. After all, the Cardassian military was now but a shadow of what it had once been, and they needed all the Guls and Glinns they could get these days. Very shortly, he knew, his chance for revenge would come.

Revenge against the prisoner Picard, who had caused all of his pain and suffering with a simple and stupid act of defiance. Picard, who had gone on to be further decorated by Starfleet than he already had been when they met. Picard, who had been the final hand that had crushed the Borg. Picard, who would very soon be Madred's prisoner again, this time for the rest of his very short life.

It took very little time to find a weakness. Even a year after the defeat of the Borg, the Federation was not what it had once been, and its intelligence networks were very leaky. Madred had secured copies of many of Picard's ship logs from his years of service. He found most of these to be useless (not to mention a trifle boring), but he had approached reading them with the iron determination of a man who has nothing left to live for.

Eventually, his search had hit paydirt, in the form of a Ferengi named Bok.

Bok's son had been killed by Picard some years ago, during a battle in which Picard clearly had held the just side. After attempting more than once to kill Picard (or those near him), Bok had been imprisoned for life, with a price of freedom (the Ferengi believed in buying one's way out of prison) so high that he would likely never see the light of day (or, in the case of Ferenginar, the gray of rain – it always rained on Ferenginar) again.

But money was something that Gul Madred had plenty of. He had taken a trip to the rainy planet, paid his dues to get into the prison, and visited Bok, offering to pay his way out in exchange for any information that might help in his quest against Picard. Bok was, of course, more than happy to oblige – he had neither love for Picard nor Ferenginar's penal system. He had given Madred the information he needed: contacts. Madred had paid his fine and left immediately.

For several weeks, he had tracked down the man they called the Shadow. The Shadow was a collector of sorts. He had odds and ends that even the Orion Syndicate would envy – at least that's what Bok had told him. Among them, Bok had heard from a very reliable source, was something that could bring down even the famous Picard.

Finally, on a dull gray evening, he had found the Shadow.

* * *

He walked through the crowded streets of New Liddick. With every breath, he pulled in the stench of rotting sewage, cooking food, and the unwashed bodies of the people who seemed to have no sense of hygiene whatsoever. He grimaced, but no one seemed to notice – after all, Cardies were _always_ grimacing, weren't they?

New Liddick was meant to reflect some place called Old Liddick, Madred supposed, trying to get his bearings and find the building he was looking for. _If that's the case,_ he thought, _I'd hate to see Old Liddick._ For a border planet, this one was a fair hive of activity, if somewhat lawless. Gul Madred stepped out of the street as he found his mark, reflecting that if the Cardassians had won the war _(Don't forget to mention the Dominion as well…)_, things on little border planets like this one would be different. Cardassians knew what true occupation meant, unlike the Federation, apparently. Yes, he supposed it was just the way they were: conquer a planet through sniveling diplomacy, then let it rot on the fringes of your ever-increasing space.

He came up to the door of the building he had been sent to find by his last contact. Three short raps on the thick wood brought no answer. He tried again. This time the door opened just a fraction, and Madred found himself staring at the business end of a disruptor.

"Who are you with?" said a voice behind the disruptor, dark and gravelly.

"I am Glinn Otho," Madred lied. "I believe you'll find that I have an appointment with the man you call the 'Shadow'."

There was a tense moment where Madred thought that the man was going to shoot him. He had spent far too many years noticing the little things about behavior, and although he could not see the man's face behind the door, he saw the reaction in the muscles of his hand.

But the hand withdrew, and the door was opened a little wider. The man behind it appeared slowly, cautiously, sizing Madred up. Madred decided to see if he could help speed up the process, and get himself off of the street. He had no particular reason to hide from anyone at this point, but he felt that it was best if he were not seen overmuch in this particular town.

"You may scan me for weapons, but you won't find anything. I assure you my intentions are strictly business-related," he said. The stranger laughed nervously.

"Yes, well 'business-related intentions' have nearly gotten us killed before," he said, but as he said it he lowered the weapon a little and backed up, allowing Madred to enter. The man was very short, perhaps a head shorter than Madred, and looked to be human. He was very finely dressed, which made his voice seem very out of place. He did indeed scan Madred with a tricorder, carefully checking three times. Then, just to be sure, he stepped behind Madred and frisked him thoroughly. At last he seemed satisfied, and came back around to the front.

Madred looked around, impressed. The building's exterior had matched that of the rest of the buildings on this street; it was broken-down, ratty. But the interior was a marvel to behold. He stood on a thick red carpet; the lower half of his boots were lost in it. Tables and chairs were rich colors of mahogany and ebony, shining with gold inlaid decorations. The curtains, a thick green satin material, hung back from a far window, tied with ornate latinum-colored sashes. A genuine staircase at the other end of the room had pure, polished marble steps.

"You'll find him up there," the gravelly-voiced man said, pointing at the staircase.

"Yes, thank you," Madred said warmly, and walked toward the stairs.

Once he was at the top, he realized that he had not even seen the half of things. The room he walked into was neatly piled with glass cases of treasures. Some of them made no sense to Madred. In one case, he saw nothing more than a simple drinking cup. In another, a beautiful crown made of gold-pressed latinum. It seemed a very odd collection indeed.

"You must be Glinn Otho," said a voice from above him. Madred craned his neck to look up, and saw that there was a man standing in the shadow of a bookcase at the top of another set of stairs (this one was not marble, but gilded duranium, he guessed).

"I am," he said. "And I presume you are…"

"The mysterious Shadow, yes," the voice said impatiently. "Let's get down to business, shall we? I understand that you're here to purchase something from me."

"That's correct," Madred said cautiously.

"Excellent," the man said, clapping his hands. The sound of the clap reverberated through the room, and Madred had a sudden idea that he very well might not like this man.

"I suppose you already know what sort of thing I'm looking for," he said.

"Indeed. Glinn Otho, I am a man of curious habits. As you can see from looking around you, I am a collector. I collect those things which people across the quadrant have a vested interest in keeping secret. It has been a lifelong fascination for me, and I love these things very much. For example, I noticed you looking at that cup in the case to your left." Madred's eyes tore from the man in the shadows to the case again, then back up at the man.

"Yes, it seems a curious exhibit."

"That cup was used to poison the late Dhajjus of Milinan Prime. It has not only the DNA of the former Dhajjus on it, but also that of his brother, the _current_ Dhajjus. Were it to fall into the proper hands – that is to say, hands which had previously held a very large sum of money – I suspect that the current Dhajjus would find himself in some very serious trouble."

"Interesting," Madred said genuinely. He looked at the cup again, wondering if said current Dhajjus lost many nights of sleep these days, wondering where his murder weapon was.

"And the crown on the other side of the aisle there is actually one of my favorites. It once belonged to the king of a planet called Ispin. Buried inside that latinum coating is technology which, when combined with the very strange brainwaves emanated from the Ispinian mind, would render him utterly telekinetic. It is a formidable weapon when weilded by anyone from that planet, and it is mine – at least until a bidder for it comes along. I could go on, of course, but I suspect that would bore you, and I am a very busy man. Let it suffice to say, I make a living out of finding things that no one wants me to find. And for you, I have found something which your Captain Picard most certainly would not like unleashed. Look behind you, in the third case from the bottom."

Madred did so, and found in the case a small box with various isolinear devices protruding from it. Next to that, he found an armband with a portable holoemitter – a new development from what he had heard.

"You'll find the holosuite at the other end of this room," the Shadow said. "I found this particular treasure on a small planet called Veridian III, shortly after the crash of the _Enterprise D_. It was a tricky job, one which required much stealth and haste. As you can imagine, I am somewhat…grieved to part with it."

"I take your meaning," Madred said smoothly. "Your price was two hundred thousand, correct?"

"It was."

"I know what this is," Madred continued, gazing at the cube. "And for that knowledge, I will double your price."

The Shadow clapped again.

"Excellent, then we have an agreement. By all means, take as long as you'd like."

Madred walked toward the holosuite at the far end, feeling the weight of the small cube in his hand. When he got to the door, he removed an isolinear chip from the cube and placed it in the access panel. He wet his lips, and stepped inside.

"Computer," he said, "access program and run."

The small room shimmered and turned itself into an ancient Earth setting, a Victorian sitting room.

Jil Orra was dead now, and with an air of nearly mortified determination, Gul Madred walked forward to meet Professor James Moriarty.


	4. The Invitation

**1.**

**The Invitation**

Giant beads of sweat rolled down Michael Allen's face as he exited the Holodeck. He was panting, clutching at an invisible stitch of pain in his side as he leaned against the bulkhead and put his head in the crook of his arm.

"Congratulations, Captain," Admiral DeSalle said warmly, "you've run through your final test."

"Thank (pant) God (pant pant) for that," Mike said, bringing his free hand up to wipe stinging sweat from his eyes. The test in question had been a four-hour veritable gauntlet of pain and endurance. He had never run so far so hard, he thought. Casting one last look into the closing holodeck doors, he added: _in such a small place._

The holodeck was still a wonder to him, even after living in what he called "_this_ universe" for over a year. It was a pinnacle of technology, as far as he was concerned, having qualities that were nearly comparable to magic. For the last four hours, he had run kilometer after painful kilometer, but had actually moved less than a few feet from his position inside the small room.

"Feel free to hit the showers at any time, Captain," the admiral said, taking a step back from him. Mike looked into her weathered face, grinning.

"I take it I'm a little ripe," he commented, taking a cursory sniff at the air around him. He was ripe indeed.

"Let's just say you'll be wanting to get cleaned up before you hit the Board of Reviews in an hour," LaSalle said. Mike grimaced.

"Yeah, I'd probably better hurry then, hadn't I?" he said. The admiral nodded.

"I wouldn't worry too much, Captain. I was watching during the last half hour of the test, and if the rest of it went as well, I think you'll be just fine."

"I hope so," Mike said. "I certainly have no desire to take it again." With that, he straightened up from the wall, and headed off toward his quarters.

* * *

Most of the tests that Mike Allen had been subjected to over the last year had taken place aboard his ship, the _Ascension_. However, his final test – the modern equivalent of the famed (or in-famed, as he liked to call it) _Kobayashi Maru_ – had to be taken at Starfleet Headquarters in San Francisco. He had taken a kind of test like that during the Borg invasion, but Starfleet didn't particularly think it counted. At least, that had been Mike's impression when Starfleet had informed him of his itenerary at the end of the invasion. 

He had been called into Vice Admiral Bragg's office one week after his return to _this_ time (after a brief return home to bury his friend and get his affairs in order).

"Sit down, Captain," Bragg had told him.

"So it's still 'captain', is it sir?" Mike had asked, taking a seat.

"It is, for the moment," Bragg said. "We've got some things to discuss, though."

That had been a terrible moment for Mike. He had given a lot of thought to remaining in Starfleet, partly because he felt there might be nothing else for him to do. Mostly, though, he had a strong urge to carry on what he thought of as Jerry's legacy, and the legacy of all those who had recently died in the Borg War. But as the weeks went on, and Mike had been bombarded by brass meetings, staff meetings, and the unending barrage of overheard whispers from clandestine underling meetings, he had begun to wonder where his place in all of this would be, should he choose to remain permanently. It was not out of the realm of possibility, he thought, that Starfleet would take his ship and crew from him, and make him serve at a much lower level on some other ship. And Mike did not particularly care for that. He had found captaining to be a challenging and painful burden, but one which he felt he could grow to love. And he was very fond of his crew, especially one young blonde crewmember named Julie Brock.

"What things?" Mike asked, trying to sound disinterested, but desperately fearing the next few words from the Vice Admiral.

"Well, there's the fact that up until the end of the Borg incursion," – _Incursion! _Mike thought. _It was a massacre!_ – "you were the captain of a _Sovereign_-class vessel. I don't have to tell you that the _Sovereign_ is one of the newest, best ships we've got on the line, and it's very much in demand at the moment. Did you know, Captain, that of the four thousand people brought from your time, only eighty-six of you went on to become captains? Of that eighty-six, only twelve survived the Borg, including yourself. And of that twelve, there are only three of you who have stayed in our time?"

"No sir, I didn't know that," Mike said.

"Well, it's true. Good thing for you, too. Because you see, if there had been more of you in the captaining position, we would have been forced to find some other way of dealing with you. Put you on Federation cargo ships, or something like that. As it stands, the other two captains and yourself are going to be allowed to retain your ships."

Mike's heart had nearly burst with joy. He grinned, unable to keep himself from it. Then, seeing the Vice Admiral's sobering look, he forced the smile down.

"Thank you, sir. You won't be sorry."

"No, I don't suppose we will," Bragg said, and his face loosened a bit. "You did a hell of a job with the Borg, Mike. Starfleet doesn't forget those to whom it owes a debt. All the same," Bragg had said, drumming his fingers on the table for a moment, "there are going to be some restrictions on you. I think you can understand that."

Mike had nodded. He had figured that even in the best case scenario, there would be conditions to the continuation of his title.

"We definitely feel that you did not have enough shake-down time with the _Ascension_. And good job or no good job, you don't have nearly the experience that any normal Starfleet captain has. You've never served aboard a starship as a subordinate before, and that's a problem. When Starfleet developed the 'Wagon Train to the Stars' program, there was very little time to consider what might happen _after_ the war with the Borg had ended. Actually, the better way to say that is that they didn't really imagine any of you would survive. Sorry to say that, but I would imagine that you've intuited that on your own by now."

Mike had nodded.

"In lieu of your recent acts, to say nothing of your already shining decoration as an officer, we have come up with an idea which ought to work for both sides. Your first year as captain is going to be a dull one, I'm afraid. We've got all sorts of menial tasks that need done now. There are a lot of planets out there that are in trouble because of the war. Planets that will need food and medical supplies, colonies that will need help in their rebuilding process, _et cetera_. I think you get the drift."

Again, the nod of understanding.

"During that time, you will be training in the Holodeck. We want eight hours of your day to be devoted to Academy training, and we want to see some serious results. I don't need to tell you that there's an extensive list of very fine captains who would be more than happy to take _Ascension _off your hands should you prove to be a poor student. At the end of this year, you'll return here for a final test, a sort of _Kobayashi Maru_, if you will."

That had caught Mike's attention.

"But I already took that," he had said, with a small amount of indignation. The test had been aboard the _Enterprise. _He had been beamed, in his sleep, into a Holodeck simulation of a Borg invasion. It had been a terrifying reminder to him of just what the Borg were capable of.

"You took a test, yes. Unfortunately, we're not going to be able to use it, on two counts. One, the Borg are defeated, which renders that particular test rather moot. Two, we will need to have a cumulative idea of what you've learned, and we can best do that here."

"I see," Mike had said, a little drained of his previous happiness.

"Excellent," Bragg had said, reaching forward to shake his hand. "Captain, welcome back to the team. I think you're really going to excel."

* * *

Now he sat in front of a review board a year later, of which Vice Admiral Bragg was a member. It had been a grueling year of boredom, and as Mike took his place at the podium that faced the brass – how convenient that it was placed so much lower than the seats they looked down from – his legs began to shake. He was sweating, despite the cool temperature of the room, and he only hoped that he would not have to give a statemtent; he wasn't sure at this point that he would be able to talk. 

Before him sat Admirals Janeway, Necheyev, and Barnes (he had heard that Barnes got his promotion shortly after the rather sudden demise of Admiral Heaton a year ago), along with Vice Admiral Bragg, Rear Admiral Benton, and Commodore Martin (Martin was the current head of Starfleet Academy, and had been the one to spearhead Allen's training process). Necheyev spoke up first.

"Captain Allen, do you understand why you're here today?"

"Yes, ma'am," Mike said, finding his voice a little less shaky than he had thought it would be.

"Good. We, the members of the board, have been following your progress over the course of the past year, and we have found it to be exemplary for the most part."

_For the most part._ Mike groaned inside. _Here it comes,_ he thought.

"In recognition of your efforts during the war against the Borg, as well as the final results of your training with the Academy, we have decided to lift the restrictions placed on your captaincy, and bring you into a state of active duty more befitting of the starship which you now command."

Mike's heart nearly exploded. It was too good to be true, he was sure of it. Feeling a bit stupid, but not wanting to take any chances, he pinched his leg a little. It was real.

"Furthermore," Admiral Janeway said, a playful smile dancing at the back of her eyes but not quite reaching her mouth, "in addition to the honors and decorations you've been awarded, we've been notified that you are to be accorded a special honor one month from now."

"What honor is that, ma'am?" Mike asked, a little puzzled. Initially, after the war, he had been decorated several times and had attended more ceremonies in which his name was spoken with awe than he cared to remember. But that had been a year ago, and things had kind of died down during his training tour.

"You'll be presiding," Janeway said, "over the retirement ceremony for Captain Picard."


	5. Enterprise

**2.**

**Enterprise**

"Geordie, where do babies come from?"

Geordie LaForge, looked up at B4, one eyebrow creeping up over the other in surprise.

"What?"

"Where do babies come from?" B4 repeated, this time a little louder. Several nearby techs turned to look in their direction, then went on about their business. Geordie passed a hand over his face, then used it to prop himself up. He had been laying on his back under one of the warp core's access terminals, trying to fix a misalignment in the force field proximity sensors – two days ago during a routine test, it had sheared almost a millimeter of duranium off of one of the railings.

"Da…uh, B4, why are you asking me this?" he said, thinking that he already knew the answer. Shortly before his death, Data had downloaded his entire memory into the B4 unit. It had been several months before the memory engrams began to take effect, but when they did, many of Data's old patterns (habits?) had begun to show themselves. B4 had begun spending a lot of time with Geordie, both on duty and off, much as his predecessor had. For Geordie, it was a mixed blessing. B4 was less complex than Data, and although he was rapidly taking on a life of his own, it often seemed to Geordie that he was merely reliving some of the earlier times he had had with his friend. He often found himself thinking of conversations with B4 as being similar to "back when Data was like that". It could be troubling, and sometimes he felt as if his relationship with B4 was hindering the process of grieving for his old friend.

"I ask because earlier today, I heard a Gevvan child ask her mother the same question. The mother told her that babies are brought to their parents by a flying Horga beast. I researched this, and found that the Gevva, like most species, reproduce sexually. Additionally, there is no record on their planet of the Horga beast having flight capability. I therefore concluded that the phrasing of the question might have a different meaning than the one I had attached to it. Am I incorrect?"

Geordie sighed, then grinned a little despite himself. It was, indeed, just like old times.

"Well, yes, you're wrong about that. Parents sometimes don't tell their children about reproduction until they're a little older."

"Older than whom?" B4 asked quizzically, clearly fascinated.

"Just…older. Not everyone assimilates information on the same level, B4. Children don't often understand things, or…" he found that he didn't really know how to finish. He didn't know what else to say. Thank God he didn't have to explain the facts of life to B4, though! "Sometimes it's just easier to tell them something they can comprehend, and then explain it to them properly when they're old enough to handle it."

"I see…" B4 said contemplatively. "Geordie, have you ever told me something false because I am not able to handle it yet?"

Geordie thought back. Yes, he probably had, but nothing came to mind. Finally, he grinned.

"If I had, do you think I'd tell you?"

The look that crossed B4's face was both hilarious because it was one of astonishment, and sad because it looked just like Data.

"No, I do not suppose you would."

Geordie stood up, smiling.

"Come on, big guy. Let's test this baby out again." As soon as he said the word "baby", he knew he'd made a mistake. It was going to be a long shift.

* * *

The _Enterprise _made a swooping, soundless orbital arc over the atmosphere of Tauron IV, passing several hundred kilometers above its glistening ice rings, which threw back a shimmering mirror image of the giant starship. From the window of his Ready Room, Picard could not see the rings, only the surface of the planet itself.

He sighed, thinking again that it was sort of a shame that this would be the last planet he would explore as a captain of the Federation. Tauron IV was not much to look at, by any standards. It was completely lifeless, uninhabitable, and the only reason it was being looked at was that it gave off trace readings of duranium compounds. Just another mining planet.

Not that the whole of the trip was to be as boring. _Enterprise_ was scheduled to rendezvous with the _Titan_ in a week, and they would be taking the eighteen-day trip back to Earth together. Captain Riker was to be one of the keynote speakers at Picard's retirement ceremony. The thought made Picard smile a little as he sipped at his tea.

He had been offered the position of admiral numerous times, and in varying tones of pleading, by Starfleet. And he had almost accepted more than once. But Picard was seventy years old, and half of his life was gone, if he was lucky. He had made captaining a starship one of his life's great passions, and he had more vivid memories – happy and not so happy – to mull over than he supposed most men would at his age. But admiralty was _not_ his passion, and he thought that now, of all times, was the best moment to break off and pursue that other thing he had always wanted.

Archaeology.

Years before, when he had captained a different _Enterprise_, he had nearly left Starfleet to pursue archaeology with Professor Galen, his long-time mentor. At the time, however, it hadn't seemed like the right thing to do. His crew – his family – had all been together then. There had been too many worlds to discover, too many dreams to conquer. And, perhaps most importantly (and paradoxically most _privately_), there had still been a chance with _her._ But Beverly was gone now; she was the Chief of Medicine at Starfleet Medical. And most of the rest of his family had disbanded as well. Will and Deanna were on the _Titan_. Worf was an Ambassador to the Klingon homeworld. And Data…well…Data was another matter entirely.

Picard had not taken to the B4 unit quite as well as he had hoped, certainly not as well as Geordie appeared to have done. It wasn't that he didn't like B4; if anything, it was that he did. He liked him the way he had liked Data in his android infancy. B4 had not risen through the ranks the way Data had – not yet, anyway – but he _had_ joined Starfleet and now served aboard _Enterprise_, if only as a Lieutenant Junior Grade. Over and over again, it had broken Picard's heart to watch B4 as he made his way around, learning things the same way that Data had done before him.

And Picard supposed, although he would never admit it, that B4 was as much a reason for him to leave Starfleet as anything else. He missed Data fiercely, and there were few things which interrupted the cycle of passing grief more than a constant reminder of how things used to be.

He had toyed with the idea of trying to think of B4 _as_ Data, but had rejected it summarily for several reasons. B4 was not Data, would never be Data. More importantly, B4 was B4, and it was unfair to him to think of him as anything else, no matter how much he looked and acted like someone else. Picard suspected that if B4 ever got around to feeling emotions, he would be quite hurt by such treatment.

Picard's head swam, playing these thoughts over and over in his head much in the same way that he had been doing for months now. That was the problem with thoughts like these; they began to swim around in circles, never finding any sort of stopping place. But Picard had found the stopping place, hadn't he? It was coming in less than a month. He was tired. He would say goodbye to _Enterprise_ and her crew, and start his new life. Where that would take him, he hadn't the slightest clue, and that was all right. If there was one thing that he could take away with him from captaincy and keep, it was the ability to deal with situations as they came to him. It kept things spicy.

The chime to his door rang.

"Come," he said. The door swooshed open, and Commander Madden entered. Picard liked Madden; he had a certain unspoiled quality about him that was quite common among younger officers. He was no Will Riker, Picard thought, but then, he _would_ think that, wouldn't he?

"Captain, we've completed the survey of the planet. We've found thirty-six separate duranium veins, approximately four hundred million tons worth."

"Excellent, Commander," Picard said, fixing a smile on his face as he turned toward his Number One. "Upload the results to Starfleet Headquarters."

"Aye sir."

"Oh, and Commander?" Picard said, taking his seat behind the desk. Madden turned back to face him. He was a tall, muscular man with dark hair, but he had an unimposing quality about him which Picard had frequently wondered about. Who was it who had said "walk softly, but carry a big stick"?

"Yes sir?"

"Have you gotten a chance yet to get excited about the prospect of your new command?" He said it warmly, but Madden stiffened a little nonetheless. Picard understood. To Martin Madden, this was a prickly subject, and no amount of warmth would convince him that to Picard, it was quite the opposite.

"Well, sir…" Madden faltered. "I suppose that I have. I do feel that it's a bit sudden, sir. I'm not entirely sure of my own capabilities as a captain yet."

"Good," Picard said with a smile. "With an attitude like that, you just might be ready."


	6. Kardashik Provence, Romulus

**3.**

**Kardashik Provence, Romulus**

The snow was gathering in lazy heaps just outside the consulate building, drifting slowly with the light northerly winds that blew from time to time. To the group sequestered inside the building, it looked like a steady piling on of oppressive blankets; by nightfall, the drifts would be perhaps a meter and a half tall in places. The snow was wet because the air was wet – the thick humidity of this region gave the wintry air a snapping chill fit to creak the bones of all who stood in it for more than a few minutes.

Inside, however, the air was warm and dry – the polar opposite, one might say, from that of the outdoors. It blew gently from various ducts throughout the chambers, antechambers, and hallways, speaking of a technology which still worked well in opposition to a technology which no longer did: namely, the Romulan weather control networks. There were even those among the souls gathered in the ward room who had to dab sweat occasionally from their brows, though whether that was in response to the actual warmth of the room, or to some other kind of discomfiture resembling heat, none could (or perhaps would) say. Most of them had beamed in from other parts of the globe, and the ceremonial garb which they wore was heavy, not built for operation in a warm climate or, in this case, operation in a warm environment meant to stave off a cold climate.

The elder statesman at the lecturn was, or had been, Proconsul Rasan. His deposition from power had come in the wake of the last large political shakeup on Romulus, during which the human Shinzon had briefly ruled as Praetor before his untimely and unlamented demise. Shinzon had lasted just long enough, unfortunately, to have rooted out his primary rivals from the Senate and the Consulate. Chief among these had been any and all members or affiliates of the Tal Shiar, and as Proconsul Rasan had been among the former, he had found himself ousted forthwith and banished out of the capital city. That the injustice had not continued so far as to see him imprisoned was, while a technical good, nothing more than another blight on the record of the former Praetor. If there was one thing that anyone ascending to a throne ought to know immediately, it was that deposed powers-that-be had a tendency to strike back.

Ultimately, however, this had not been the case with Rasan, or with any members of the Tal Shiar, for that matter. The Federation, along with the help of the woman who had become the succeeding Praetor, had seen to that. Commander Donatra of the _Valdore_ and Captain Picard of the _Enterprise_ had worked together to destry Shinzon and his ship, thus eliminating the problem with great efficacy. Within a few months of Donatra's ascendance to the position of Praetor, the Tal Shiar had begun to seep back in as a major force again.

They were a secret police, the Tal Shiar. They bore the responsibility of looking into the doings of the Romulan people – to say nothing of any other planet in affiliation with the Romulan Empire – with great stealth. If spying of any sort needed to be done on any Romulan citizen, you contacted the Tal Shiar. If there was an arrest which needed to be made for the sake of the State, but which could not be brought about legally, you contacted the Tal Shiar. If a certain member of the body politic needed to be removed in a more…permanent way…you contacted the Tal Shiar. They were – or at least, had been – the most hated and feared sect among the Romulan people for over two centuries, and that was how most of them liked it. To be hated and feared was to have power. To strike awe was to muzzle. And it had looked as if in time, the Tal Shiar would be returning to its former political anti-hero glory.

But then the Borg had come, and that had shaken everything up. Suddenly, the Praetor had not been much interested in spy network reports, because there was absolutely no way to infiltrate the Borg with spies. She had not been interested in reconnaissance on political activist groups, because the political activists were in as much danger as the rest of the planet was. And in the end, because key members of the Tal Shiar had pressed her further than was warranted under the stressful situation preceding and following the Borg attack on the homeworld, she had essentially castrated the sect, mothballing it into near nonexistence.

Until today.

Former Proconsul Rasan, aware that the speech with which he was about to open the morning's dialogue wanted to brim over with gall and vitriole, clenched at the sides of the lectern, as if he could somehow transfer his bitterness and irritation into the object through an act of conscious telekenisis. He took in a deep breath, felt the stinging in his lungs – they had been singed by battle smoke during the Borg attack, and had not quite yet healed – let it out. Took in another, let it out.

"Members of the Tal Shiar, and those of you who are in the confidence of the State's highest ally and protector," he began at last, feeling a calmness from having taken the deep breaths that could never have come from merely gripping something, "thank you for coming today. As you are all well aware, it is not the custom of the Tal Shiar to hold any form of public meeting, and so this occasion is an extremely out of the ordinary one. However, due to our current precarious position in the Senate I, along with several other high-ranking members of our organization, have deemed it necessary that we do so. I'm going to bring up a topic at present. We will deliberate it for the space of one hour, and then we will disperse. Although I'm sure that I do not need to tell you that this is to be kept with the utmost confidentiality, prudence dictates that I do so nevertheless."

In front of him, twenty-five heads nodded in acquiescence, both to the former statement and to the latter. Rasan steeled himself: this was the firing moment. If he left off here and walked away, he would probably live. If he said what he had to say and then walked away, the chance that he might one day be executed for treason did more than merely exist.

"As you are all doubtless aware, our intelligence-gathering capabilities have been severely limited during the tenancy of this current…administration. It seems that our esteemed Praetor, in her vigor to unite the people of Romulus not only with the people of Remus but also with those of the Federation, has decided that the security network under which she enjoys her…ah, freedoms as a ruler, is essentially no longer necessary. Be that as it may, those of us here present, as well as a cadre of field operatives both on world and off it, continue to maintain a watchful eye over the Empire, as is our given task.

"To that end, I bring you this latest piece of information, to do with what you will. There is a certain Cardassian Gul by the name of Madred who has been staying in the capital city for the past two weeks, ostensibly as a member of the honor guard for Ambassador Hikala of the Cardassian High Command." Rasan pressed a button on a small padd at the front of the lectern, and a holographic projection of Gul Madred appeared to his left. "On the surface, Madred seems to be of no great political significance to the Cardassian Union. He was once even demoted from his position as a Gul. But our sources have discovered that he used to be a member of the Obsidian Order, and that his demotion came as a result of some botched gathering of intelligence. Be that as it may, there would be no point in scrutinizing him much further, except for one thing. Two days ago, he made the mistake of revealing his true activities on this planet to one of our operatives, believing her to be nothing more than a palace guard.

"Apparently, he has some motivation for trying to stir up unrest in the next few days…the sort of unrest which breeds violence, that is. There is a ceremony to be taking place very shortly on Earth – the retirement of their flagship captain, one Jean-Luc Picard. Madred plans to kidnap the captain during the ceremony, and to place the blame on Romulan freedom-fighters. His hope – at least, this is what he told our operative – is to stir up enough unrest that the Neutral Zone will be re-established.

"So now the question, friends, is what do we do about it? Do we warn the Praetor of this? The Federation? Or do we sit back and allow it to happen? Excellent arguments can certainly be made both in favor of and against the Neutral Zone, but if the argument is in the affirmative, are the proceeding events of the sort which will guarantee its restoration? What do you think?"

And the deliberation began.

***

Among those joined in this debate, there was a traitor. It was the sort of fly in the ointment which could only be expected but was somehow almost never detected, and this case was no exception. Commander T'Nara had spent the first thirty years of her life bearing the name of Gennifer Terrault, on Earth. As an infant, she had been the only survivor of a Romulan transport ship that crashed on the surface of Haban III, a planet which had been in dispute between the Romulan Empire and the Federation along the Neutral Zone – back when there had _been_ a Neutral Zone, that was. Much to the chagrin of the Romulan military force which had been sent to collect any survivors, a Federation outpost had heard the distress call first, and had dispatched a ship (the ironically named _U.S.S. Rendezvous_) to the planet. The Romulan baby, who would grow up under the nickname "Ginny", was found neatly wedged between two collapsed bulkheads. Most of the rest of the crew had either been pulverized or vaporized on impact, but little Ginny had survived almost without a scratch.

The captain of the _Rendezvous_, a Deltan by the name of Usanj, had decided that there was no reason that the Romulans needed to ever know that the baby had not been vaporized with the rest of the crew. This he did with careful deliberation, being sure to check the passenger manifest to make sure that the parents of the baby had been aboard the doomed craft, and would not be back on Romulus, missing their child.

She had been brought back to Earth amid a hale of very hushed controversy. Months of deliberation passed in which it seemed that they might send her back to her home planet, along perhaps with a copy of Captain Usanj's resignation letter. But in the end, Usanj had ended up with a decoration for valor, and the Romulan baby had been given to the very private care of a pair of human parents. At the very least, she provided Starfleet's medical wing with a living Romulan specimen to study (always at a distance, of course). At the very most…

It had not been Ginny's intention to even join Starfleet, let alone to become a spy for them on her long-forgotten homeworld. Things had just sort of worked out that way. It was tough being the only Romulan on Earth, and it was somehow tougher being a Romulan on Vulcan during her infrequent childhood visits to that planet. There, not only did everyone look basically like her, but shunned her in a deeper way that was somehow more difficult to bear than the jibes of Terran children.

And so, in the course of time, she had ended up doing both: joining Starfleet and becoming a spy.

It caused no great pinging against the wall of her conscience, really. She had been raised with a Federation (and, more to the point, a _human_) understanding of Romulan ways, from their political views down to their sense of fashion, and she didn't care much for it. The stirrings in her soul to see her homeworld were small things, not nearly enough to stay her from doing her duty. Even upon arriving on Romulus six years ago, and seeing the beauty of Romulan culture and the wonder of a people who looked and spoke and, in some respects, thought like her, she still maintained to herself at all times what she was: a Starfleet operative.

Now, she glanced around at her companions in this meeting of the Tal Shiar, aware as she had always been at meetings like this that every single one of them would kill her in an instant if they ever found out who she really was. She joined in the discussion, but only to keep face. To appear as if she had as much stock in the outcome of this latest intelligence as they had. In fact, she did, but not in the way that she conveyed to them.

She wondered how she could possibly get this leaked to Starfleet, should the council here present decide that that was an undue course of action. She had never met Captain Picard personally, and it didn't much matter to her that he might be kidnapped or even killed. What mattered to her was that the Federation didn't _want_ the Neutral Zone to be re-established, and that they would do almost anything to keep it from happening. There were always a million angles to a thing like this, and the angle that she focused on now was this: if Starfleet were to get word of a plot to kidnap this Captain Picard, and act in time, might that not actually _strengthen_ their ties to Praetor Donatra, rather than shake them? It wasn't really for her to analyze the data that she picked up, but she had always had a nasty habit of doing so nonetheless. Yes, she thought that it might just work in Starfleet's favor to stop this mess before it could start.

Of course, there was the problem of actually getting the information to them, which brought her right back to where she had been moments before. She couldn't very easily leak it on even a coded subspace channel; the Tal Shiar was in the habit of bugging its most trusted members the most heavily. She supposed that she could defect with the information and return to Federation space, but how could she be sure that it was worth destroying everything she had spent the last several years building? It might not even be real information, after all; such things had been known to happen before. Her contact from the Federation, an attaché to Ambassador Spock, was not due on Romulus again for nearly another month, so he would be of no help.

The debate around her waxed and waned, and in the end it appeared that they were going to choose silence. She had no choice but to cast her vote in the same direction; to do otherwise might attract suspicion. At length, everyone got up, made their goodbyes, and headed toward the transporter rooms in the building's eastern wing. As she walked toward one herself, headed for the capital city, T'Nara – Ginny – had a sudden thought. There _was_ a friend in the Old Quarter who might be able to help her. Perhaps…if the price was right.


	7. The Ascension

**4.**

**The Ascension**

Night in space was eternal; only the splash of starlight or the miasma of a localized nebula might break it. The silky darkness, which had existed in this one area perhaps since the beginning of the universe, parted incorporeally as the tritanium hull of _U.S.S. Ascension_ sailed gracefully into it. Her sleek hull, a heavy gunmetal gray punctuated by ribbon-bands of shadow from raised surfaces gleaming in the identification lights, gave off the appearance of something alive, a titanic bioluminescent creature in the cold voids of the cosmos.

Within the confines of her bulkheads was a new set of rules, however. The night _could_ be conquered, and in most areas of the ship it was. Weakly. The overheads throughout the various corridors had dimmed automatically at 2100 hours – this approximated a feeling of "night" aboard a starship. Only dim, because at all times a starship crew must be functional, and no one wanted to stumble over something on the way to a torpedo tube during a battle.

In at least one room of the starship, however, it was pitch black, except for the faint starlight slipping in through the captain's window.

In the dark, Mike Allen felt the delightful disparity of human temperature control. Cool fingers at the back of his neck, pressing into his hair. Warm breasts, pressed against his chest. A warmer region still, further down, connected to him in a way both primal and calculated. He moved in her and with her, and it seemed that all the world – the _universe_ – was made up of the rhythms of their love. If music boiled down to rhythm, where had rhythm come from? The beating of two hearts in tandem as each thrust one another toward a common goal? The movement of two bodies linked, perhaps, by a single joined soul?

Maybe.

Julie stared up at him in the dark, smiling between kisses. He couldn't make out all of her face, but he didn't have to. Almost everything she had to say to him came through her eyes. He moved with her, and remembered the first time he had ever seen her, sitting next to him in a freezing classroom at Starfleet Academy.

They had both been ripped away from their own worlds, and had found themselves working together to save humanity from the Borg. It seemed so long ago now, so very far from anything that was part of his real, day-to-day world. But at the same time, it seemed _very_ real. After all, the chain of events that had brought him to this moment, what might be the apogee of his life, was the foundation beneath it. It wasn't something that could be forgotten. As it did less and less frequently these days, this thought brought with it another. Jerry, his friend. Jerry, lying there in a broken heap at the Battle of Golden Gate. Jerry's blood running out into the rain, where it doubtless thinned and slipped between the grains of sand and into the Earth, lost forever.

"Mike," Julie breathed, her fingers tightening slightly in his hair. Mike looked down at her, unaware that he had been staring off, literally, into space. He stared into her eyes. She nodded almost imperceptibly, the worry on her face transforming into a little breathless smile.

It was time.

Afterward, they remained locked together, their breathing slowing to a brisk tandem walk. In the dark, Mike could feel sweat popping out on his body, but the cool of the room fought it well, and he was content to lie on top of her.

"Honey," Julie said, stretching lazily beneath him in a way that would, some minutes hence, cause him to begin thinking of sex again, "that was good."

"Good?" Mike said, arching an eyebrow that she couldn't see but would probably intuit. "Just _good_?"

"Okay," she said with a wry grin. "It was _pretty_ good."

"You're gonna pay for that," Mike said, and Julie only stared up at him innocently.

"For what, Mi – "

He began tickling her ribs from both sides, simultaneously holding her in place with his body. Julie shrieked, and as usual, Mike was unsure whether or not he was grateful that the walls to his room were soundproof.

"Quit it!" she screamed, breathless and laughing, but also fighting fire with fire. She knew his most sensitive areas just as well as he knew hers, and he could feel fingers dancing around the edges of his armpits. With a little yelp of his own, Mike both surrendered and won the engagement.

He flopped down on top of her, pinning her down.

For a moment, they just lay there, laughing between harsh breaths. Gradually these, slowed, but Mike made no move to get up. After a bit, the room grew very still again, and there was only the sound of their breathing and the steadied beating of their two hearts.

"What are you thinking about?" she said softly, so near to his ear that he could feel the slight breeze of her breath. It was warm. Mike stifled a groan. He had fought and defeated the Borg, but that had been nothing compared to fighting this question. He couldn't make her _not_ ask it.

"You remember McDonald's?" he said, deciding that if he had to humor her, he would do it in his own way.

"What?"

"McDonald's," he said patiently, raising himself up on his elbows a little to look into her face. "You know, fast food, Quarter Pounder with fries –"

"I _know_ what McDonald's is," she said.

"Was," Mike corrected.

"Huh?"

"McDonald's," Mike said. "You know what it _was_. It's not around anymore."

"I figured that," she said. "Anyway, what the hell does McDonald's have to do with anything? I think you're evading the question, Mister."

"That's _Captain_ to you, ma'am," Mike said, and she punched him in the shoulder. "Anyway," he continued, "it most certainly is not an evasion. You asked what I was thinking, and I was thinking about McDonald's. The other day, I spent about twenty minutes trying to program a Big Mac into the replicator. Know what I got?"

"A Royale with cheese?" she said. Mike grinned at her.

"Not even that good. It looked like a burger, and sorta smelled like a burger…sorta. But it sure as hell didn't _taste_ much like a burger. I think I'm going to have to have a word with the ship's cook, see if we can't do something about it."

A long silence.

"Okay," Julie said, sighing theatrically. "I guess asking you what you were thinking was a bad idea. How about telling me what's on your mind instead."

"Aren't they the same thing?" Mike said, and he could hear the evasiveness creeping into his own tone. Before she could answer, he gave in. "All right, all right," he said, dropping his head down so that it rested on her upper breast. She sighed as if this were where he belonged forever, and placed a hand in his hair. She seemed to love stroking his hair – she could spend hours doing it.

"I've been thinking a lot about change, you know?" he said, not bothering to look up or pause for an answer. "I mean, one of the staple things about this universe, for you and me at least, has been Picard's command of the _Enterprise_. Now that it's ending, I just feel…weird, is all. I mean, I realize _why_ he'd want to do it. This job's a helluva lot more stressful than it ever looked on the TV show."

"That's what I'm here for," Julie said, and he could feel her grinning at him.

"I dunno, hon," Mike said, not quite feeling like grinning himself. He hadn't really been all that worked up about this, had he? Julie mentioning it had sort of brought it to the surface (he was discovering this to be one of her many talents), and now he felt that he had to find a way to deal with it. Thoughts of Jerry cropped up again – old, familiar friends now, ready at a moment's notice to do an instant replay of that fateful afternoon. He pushed them away again. He didn't often talk to Julie about Jerry. She hadn't really known him very well, for one thing, and for another it was just too painful. Jerry, after all, should be here now, serving as his second in command. Jerry had had just as much right to this fantastic universe as Mike had. But Fate had drawn the cards, and Jerry had lost the bet.

"I think," Mike said, "that I fear change more than anything else. Back on Earth – _our_ Earth, I mean – I guess that would have been construed as a lack of ambition. But here…" he trailed off.

"It's the same here as it is anywhere," Julie said. "But it's _not_ a lack of ambition, at least not on your part. You are, after all, the captain of a _Sovereign_-class vessel, dear. That takes a little more ambition than you're giving yourself credit for."

"Yeah, but that was practically all a fluke," Mike said, remembering how astounded he'd been the day that Admiral Heaton had told him the news. "I got in because of how much I knew. In other words, darling," he said, raising his head and smiling at her, "I got in for being a geek."

"Wasn't your knowledge attained by applying ambition?" she said, and Mike had no reply. "Didn't you spend the time reading and watching and listening and talking about all of this?" She gestured toward the ship around them.

"I…I guess I never thought of it that way," Mike said, wide-eyed. "I mean, it's total bullshit, but it's damned _elegant_ bullshit." He stared at her for a long moment, and then they both began to laugh.

This time the laughing tapered off into kissing, and the kissing turned into moving. The moving turned into something new entirely, and a heat that was invisible to the human eye began to once again coalesce between them as they moved, inside their ship, through the silent and cold cosmos.


	8. Romulan Capital City

**5.**

**Romulan Capital City**

**The Old Quarter**

Old Quarter Rihannsu had a kind of tang to the dialect, Agent Straub thought, which separated it from other dialects in the city. Much as one could tell the difference between a downeast Maine Yankee and a Bostonian back home, Straub could pick out the differences between the various dialects here with no problem. More importantly, he could _reproduce _them. For the past three years, Straub had been working under an assumed identity in this part of the city, and part of carrying that identity off meant being able to flawlessly reproduce the accent.

Not that it mattered much to him now.

He sat, wrists and ankles manacled to the chair, and listened to his captor drone on in that tangy Old Quarter _patois_. He was irritated at himself for having been caught, and concerned about what might happen to him soon. Already, he was almost certain that they knew he was human. Careful reconstructive surgery could not alter true DNA type, and while he could fool a passive medical scanner, he was pretty sure that actual tissue samples had been obtained when he was unconscious.

"You're a long way from home," the Romulan whom he had known as Skonn said, confirming Straub's suspicions. "We've suspected for a long time that you might not be who you said you were, but I have to confess, none of us ever suspected you were a rounder."

_Rounder_, Straub thought, almost smiling inwardly. It was a Romulan epithet for humans, presumably birthed from the difference in ear structure between the two races. Skonn – or whatever his name was – was using it now as an intimidation tactic. _No need for that, buddy_, Straub thought. _You're doing an excellent job already._

"Do you have anything to say for yourself?" Skonn asked, looking at him with arms folded across his chest. He seemed to be considering what to do with Straub, although there was little doubt in Straub's mind that the end results of each consideration would pretty much be the same. Game over.

"Actually, I'd like to know how you figured it out, if you don't mind," he said. He was stalling, and he knew it. Worse, he knew that Skonn knew it, too. One did not arrive short a few cards to the offices of the Tal Shiar; even thugs like Skonn, lower level pawns in the organization, tended to be murderously shrewd.

"If you're thinking that someone is going to get you out of this, you may as well give it up," Skonn said pleasantly, unfolding his arms and reaching out to a nearby chair. He grabbed it and dragged it forward until it faced Straub's, then he sat down in it. In the dim light, Straub could see the two other Romulans in the room. He didn't know either of them – of course he didn't. The Romulans he had worked with – other than Skonn, of course – were likely either dead or being interrogated now. They wouldn't be brought here, wherever here was.

"How about I tell you something I think you'll find a lot more interesting," Skonn said with a hint of a smile. "I think I'll tell you just exactly how I'm going to kill you."

Straub tensed against his restraints, knowing that it would do no good. Skonn had him dead to rights. There would be no sweet-talking this man, no reasoning with him.

"You see," Skonn said, getting up to pace back and forth around the chair, "right about now you're thinking that there's really nothing that stands between me and killing you. You've got no information that interests me. Your compatriots are all either facing the same thing you are right now, or will be soon." He paused and looked at Straub, and Straub knew. T'Nara had been compromised.

"And anyway," Skonn said, resuming his walk, "you're not even Romulan, a fact which destroys the last shred of hope you ever had of getting out of here alive. So I want to give you something special, since all of these factors have converged to give you such a bad business." He returned to the chair, but did not sit. Instead, he leaned down and peered into Straub's eyes, finding the terror he was looking for and enjoying it. "Even out the playing field, if you follow."

"Look, Skonn –" Straub began.

"I am not interested," Skonn said, waving a hand. "Please, Agent Straub, I will gag you if I have to. I would prefer not to, because I would very much like to watch your mouth twitch, but I'll do whatever I must." He waited a moment. Straub quieted. It was difficult to think that he was at that moment in life when one must choose to go out either bravely or kicking and screaming, because all other options had left.

"Good," Skonn said, smiling approvingly. "That's better. I'm going to start with your feet, Agent Straub. I'm going to cut them off one at a time. Not with a laser beam, but with a knife. You will be given no anesthetic. When you pass out from the pain, I will see that you are given the proper medicine to keep you from dying of shock. When you are well enough for me to continue, I will do so.

"After the feet are gone, I will begin to remove the muscle tissue of your legs. Your calves will make an excellent meal for my pet dranga. Again, the same procedures will be followed. I want you to be alive and conscious for as long as possible. Do you know why?"

Terror had washed over Straub, a terror that he had never experienced before. He had been frightened, and had even in his daydreams imagined being _more_ frightened. But nothing could have prepared him for this. Because he knew that Skonn was telling the truth. Warm urine stained the front of his pants. His breathing began to come in harsh, short strokes. It was all he could do to keep from crying.

"I'll tell you why," Skonn said, taking no notice. "The Tal Shiar is a very old organization, Agent Straub. We have played the game of espionage with your Federation intelligence community for many years. Every once in a while, say every twenty years or so, it is important for the members of one intelligence group to send a very strong message to the members of its opposite number. This message will not hinder the game, of course. Who would want that? What it does, rather, is makes them think about the potential sacrifice. You see, Agent Straub," Skonn said, sitting down in the chair again and removing a wicked-looking dagger from a slot on his belt behind his back, "you and I are a very small part of a much bigger thing. When you die horribly – the way I've just described you will, that is – it's going to mean a lot more to you and me than it will to your superiors or mine. But it _does_ set a precedent. If you had just infiltrated us as a human and been discovered, I would have shot you in the back of the head. You would be dead before your brain even registered that someone had put something against the back of your skull. The Federation Security Council would lose one of its agents; there would be a funeral, and so on and so forth. Life, and the game, would go on. But you didn't do that, did you?" Skonn asked, resting the point of the knife on Straub's right knee. It jerked involuntarily, and a little spot of blood appeared on his pants.

"I…d-did what I w-was o-ordered to d-d-do," Straub said, gasping the words out as his breath hitched and wanted to become sobs.

"Of course you did," Skonn said, smiling pleasantly. "Did you think I was angry with you? Well, maybe I was at first, a little," he admitted, shrugging and pulling the knife back a little bit. Then he grinned. "But that's your fault for doing such an impressive job of fooling us all. Agent Straub, I'm not angry with you at all. In fact, I'm rather proud of you. If you had been one of my agents, I would very likely weep tears of patriotic sorrow at your funeral. You have to under –"

He stopped then, and it took Straub's ears – which had been ringing from the pounding pressure caused by his gasps – a second to pick up the three quick THWIP noises. He raised his head in alarm.

Skonn was looking at him, his eyes wide, his lips pursed into an odd position. He opened his mouth as if to say something, and a gush of blood spilled over his lower lip and down his chin. With horror, Straub saw that much of the area below the chin was blasted away. It was smoking, and Straub thought he could smell the faint aroma of charring flesh. After a second or two, Skonn's head seemed to realize that he was dead, and relaxed. The neck – what was left of it – was unable to support the head, and allowed it to fall backward. With a sickening crack the spinal column let go, and Skonn's head bounced against his own back. A moment later, his body crumpled to the floor. One hand twitched spasmodically over the handle of the knife.

Straub looked around. He was sickened by what he had just seen and heard and smelled, but he also felt a faint glimmer of hope. Where the other two Romulan guards had been, there were now nothing but blast marks on the wall.

"Agent Straub," said an unfamiliar voice from somewhere in the dark behind him, "were these two the only other guards?"

"The only ones I know of," Straub said, his voice still hitching, but clearing a little. "Who are you, sir?"

A shadow fell across him, and in a moment he was looking into the face of a human.

"I'm gonna give you two choices and five seconds to decide," the man said. "You can die right here and now, in a manner much quicker and more painless than described by your friend here," he said, jerking a thumb at the corpse on the floor. "Or you can come to work for me. You do that, and you can say goodbye to everyone you've ever known, your own identity, the works. Also, you'll get no outside credit for what you do; no one will ever write you up in the history books, because you will not exist. On the other hand, you will get to be a part of espionage on a level that makes your work for the Federation Security Council look like a kid's game of cops and robbers. You've got five seconds, Agent Straub. Decide."

"Do you work for the Federation?" Straub asked immediately. The man, who was dressed entirely in black and had no identifying insignia, smiled a tired smile at him.

"We don't answer to the Federation, but we do work for their protection," he said.

"Then I'm in," Straub said.

"I thought you might say that," the man said. He loosed Straub's bonds and let him stand up, then offered his hand. "I will be known to you as Agent Brewster. We'll get you briefed and outfitted with a new identity as soon as we're off-world."

"Can you at least tell me what I've just joined?" Straub asked, rubbing his wrists and still a little afraid to believe that all of this was real, and he was still alive. Ahead of him the man – Agent Brewster – laughed.

"Welcome to Section 31 kid," he said.


	9. The Office Of The President

**6.**

**The Office of the President**

**San Francisco, Earth**

The office of the President of the United Federation of Planets had an excellent view of the Bay, and of the Golden Gate Bridge. The President often thought to himself, during the infrequent moments of his day when he had time to look, that the old bridge was as good a reminder of his responsibility for the safety of his people as anything possibly could be. Here many had died, and the foreground of the Bay's beach presented a battleground which, even now, looked every bit the shrine it had been made into by the millions of visitors and the Committee of Public Works. There was even talk of erecting three statues: an Army officer, a Marine officer, and a Starfleet officer. These would represent the bulk of the defendant brigade during that critical battle.

The bell rang, and the President turned away from the forcefield-reinforced window. "Come in," he said.

The woman who entered was the President's aide, Doctor P'Ren of the Vulcan High Command. She wore the non-commissioned uniform of a Federation representative, and several Vulcan awards – including the coveted (so far as Vulcans coveted) IDIC award – dotted the upper left side of her chest.

"Good morning, Doctor P'Ren," the President said, smiling.

"Good morning, Mister President," P'Ren said, ducking her head slightly in the prescribed manner.

"What's on the docket today?" the President asked, sure that he didn't really want to know.

"Your first meeting begins in five minutes," she replied, consulting a padd which she didn't need. "You'll be meeting with Ambassador Surspoy of the Romulan Empire and Ambassador Worf of the Klingon High Command."

"Worf…" The President said, then let the name hang in the air for a moment. "He's one of ours, isn't he? In fact, hasn't he served with Jean-Luc Picard on the _Enterprise_?"

"Yes, sir, Mister President. He was their chief tactical officer for about six years before moving onto Deep Space Nine."

"Ah," the President said. "_That's_ where I really remember him from. Yeah, he did a helluva job during the Dominion War."

"He has been decorated multiple times, sir, yes," P'Ren said. It was obvious that she was impatient with this exercise, but only because the President had worked with her for over a year and a half. He decided not to torture her any further.

"Okay, so we're meeting with the ambassadors about…what?"

"They wish to discuss Federation mediation for the upcoming series of peace talks."

"Of course they do," the President said. Two disparate peoples, the Klingons and the Romulans. If it hadn't been for the intervention of the Federation, the President reflected, the two races would have gone to war with each other multiple times over. Part of him was amused to think that it would be interesting to see the outcome of such a war. The rest of him was glad that it wasn't going to happen on his watch. Probably.

"After that," Doctor P'Ren continued, "you will be taking _Force One_ to the Mars shipyards for an inspection tour, followed by a brief press conference." She handed him a separate padd. On it were notes, and a brief speech on Starfleet operational capacity which had been drafted that morning before the President's eyes had even opened from sleep. He sighed, a little theatrically. His idea of a good mid-morning to early afternoon was _not_ spending it walking around the Utopia Planetia Shipyards. The titanic hulks of starships, midway in their transformation from _berth_ to _birth_, held little of the fascination for him which they had when he was young. More to the point, he really didn't feel like talking to the press today. But, what had the French said? _C'est la vie?_ Such is life.

"…and finally," P'Ren was droning on, "you will be meeting this evening privately with Admirals Beckworth and Rusch of the Federation Security Council.

That caused the President's ears to perk a little.

"A private meeting?" he said. "What's this about, Doc?"

"I do not know," P'Ren said, ignoring his use of informality as per usual. "In fact, the briefing documents are marked for your eyes only."

"Interesting," the President said, leaning back in his chair. In a way, this was good, because it gave him something to look forward to during the tedious next few hours. On the other hand, if the news was bad…

"All right," he said, sitting back up. "Let's get started."

* * *

That evening it rained in San Francisco. The President sat in his office with the lights dimmed a little, enjoying the show outside his window. When the door opened and the two admirals were shown in, the President turned, becoming all business again.

"Good evening, Admirals," he said, rising to take their hands in turn.

"Good evening, Mister President," they both said, nearly at the same time. Within seconds, the formalities were over, and all three men were seated.

"So, what's this all about?" the President asked.

"Mister President," Admiral Rusch said, "sir, first of all, we've lost two of our contacts on Romulus in the last twelve to twenty-four hours. Just one would – you'll excuse me, sir – not be a cause for that much concern. After all, they've both been implanted into the Tal Shiar, and we all know what happens to our agents when they get caught."

The room was silent for a moment.

"The problem," Rusch went on, "is that _both_ agents were working for the Tal Shiar, and they were connected."

"Connected in what way?" the President asked.

"Well," Beckworth said, hedging a little, "let's just say that one was an information pipeline for the other."

"That's a little shifty, Admiral," the President said, frowning a bit.

"I'm sorry, Mister President. Given the right amount of time and information, we can bring the rest of this before you, but for now, the identities of these two sources are known only to three people, two of whom are seated in this room. If you want to know more, you're going to have to go above me, to the Director."

"I see," the President said. In truth, he wasn't much surprised and wasn't offended at all. This was how covert operations worked. The fewer people you told, the less the chance of a slip in information. Even presidents were not immune to the occasional slip. And a slip of this magnitude could mean war. "Well," he continued, grousing just to save face, "if you can't tell me who it is, why are you bringing this in front of me?"

"Well, sir," Beckworth said, "because it may involve something you _do_ know about, given your clearance level." This was almost a joke, given that technically, all security levels filtered _down_ from the President. Nevertheless, the real universe did not operate this way. Things were just too complicated.

"And what might that be?" the President asked.

"We think that one of the agents may have been coerced to enter Section 31," Rusch said.

Another moment of silence, this one very long.

"And how do you two know about that?" the President asked. It was his turn to play his cards close to the table.

"We don't know _about_ so much as we know _of_, Mister President," Beckworth assured him. "We've been debriefed on Section 31, and it lasted all of about five minutes. The last three of those minutes were stern warnings about what'd happen to our testicles if we ever told anyone." Beckworth, the president noted, had a distinct Texan drawl to him when he wanted to. Most of the time, it was concealed beneath a nondescript voice that was, if anything, pleasant to listen to. But when he wanted to convey something important…

"All right," the President said. "So we may have lost someone to Section 31. This can hardly be called a defection…"

"No, sir, it can't," Rusch agreed. "And again, we probably wouldn't have brought this to you, except…" he trailed off, looked at Beckworth.

"Except what?" the President prodded, also turning back to Beckworth."

"Except that it coincides with some very interesting new developments from Cardassia Prime," Beckworth said.


	10. Transmission En Route

**7.**

**Transmission En Route**

The message began its life in the bowels of Ambassador Slawson's encrypted computer, in the undoubtedly bugged state room of the Cardassian High Command (CHC). Slawson suspected that there was a reason for the Federation Embassy to be located as far away from CHC as it was – it was in Serda, part of the Dlask Province, which was nearly on the other side of the planet – and he was suspicious even further of the fact that transport for political attaches was limited during the middle of the day, supposedly due to relief effort shipments in and out of the capital city. He had to admit to himself, however, that Cardassia was still a planet in trouble. The Dominion War had taken an incredible toll on the Cardassian Union, and recent trade embargoes from both the Federation and the Klingon Empire (which had been put in place as a kind of slap on the wrist for Cardassia's involvement with the Bek'Tal in the Borg War) had piled on the hurt to the Union's central government. Not to mention the people beneath it.

Thus, Ambassador Slawson found himself accepting the terms of his radically-changed position in the upper eschelons of Cardassian politics, and was now sending an encoded communique from his small computer. An odd amalgamation of old and new technology, this computer required him to use the old art of typing, while using a holographic projection to blur the motions of his fingers and the message on the screen to any possible hidden cameras. As he finished typing what he had learned from his source in the Obsidian Order today, Slawson smiled.

It seemed that, as always, espionage was espionage.

* * *

Subspace was a funny thing.

When it had been discovered a century and a half ago by the Federation, the researchers had thought that it was too good to be true. The top brass had thought it was too good to be true, as well. But it turned out that subspace was every bit as good as it had been thought to be. In it lay a method for sending messages back and forth across unfathomable distances of space in a relatively short amount of time. Previously, if a message was to be sent from one place to another across the stars, the fastest way of getting it there was a high-warp ship. In this way, Starfleet had found itself operating like its own ancient sailors, cut off from the rest of the world and delivering letters back and forth, with months or even years piling up between periods of communication.

But that all changed with subspace. Now a message could be sent from, say, Cardassia Prime to Earth in as little as twenty minutes.

The signal which exited Ambassador Slawson's computer first made its way to the planet's satellite communications array. This was an orbiting platform which monitored incoming and outgoing subspace transmissions, and was staffed with enough desk-jockeys to form a small military regiment. Slawson's clearance signature was enough to get the message through the array, though he had no doubt that, as with all of his other transmissions, it would be filed and stored away for examination. It was doubtful that the Cardassians had learned to decrypt Federation codes just yet, but Slawson supposed that eventually they would, and the Federation would have to invent new ones. Espionage was espionage was espionage. Tiring game, that.

The signal passed out of the Cardassian solar system faster than the blink of an eye, departing along what had come to be known as a subspace channel. These channels were actually invisible streambeds of a sort, and they forked off in an infinite number of directions. The message "picked" the likeliest one of these, and began heading for Federation territory.

The message, in and of itself, was not in fact a message at all. Rather, it was a subatomic chemical/electrical _representation_ of a message, which could be interpreted by a similarly-equipped computer at the receiving end. The corrollary to this was the binary and trinary codes used in normal computation cycles. A computer core spoke in either zeroes and ones or in zeroes, ones and twos, but the image displayed to its human operator had none of this. The message from the computer core, in other words, was something entirely different than the translation showing on the screen.

The signal raced along, and ahead of it raced the signal precursor, or "test signal". In order to be delivered in the most efficient way, subspace messages were usually routed through Starfleet ships – this usually kept subspace messages from accidentally wandering into regions of plasma space storms or harmful nebulae. But if a subspace message reached a ship which was having communications problems (subspace blackouts were not unheard-of, even in the twenty-fourth century), the signal would bounce back and have to find a new course. Less-frequently, signals could be entirely lost in this manner. Therefore, it was important for a test signal to race ahead of the actual one, testing the communications equipment of each starship or relay station on the way.

Something which could be anticipated but not controlled was what happened to the signal on its way today. It was intercepted, stopped, and analyzed by a ship which did not show up on any scan – the cloak was too perfect. After fifteen minutes of intense scrutiny, the message (easily decrypted by a Section 31 agent who had all the right keys to fit the locks) was re-written, re-scrambled, and sent upon its merry way toward Earth and Admiral Beckworth.


	11. The Titan

**8.**

**The **_**Titan**_

In the Communications Center aboard the _U.S.S. Titan_, a light flashed on a main comm console. Ensign Maurice Stanley, whose duty shift was about to end in ten minutes, shot a bored look at his screen. His eyes first narrowed, then rolled in their sockets theatrically. Yet _another_ priority message, captain's eyes only. How was he ever supposed to get in the hours of actual communications legwork necessary for departmental transfer, when all he ever seemed to do was just _pass_ messages along?

An exaggeration, to be sure, but not much of one. He sighed and punched up the controls to route the message to the bridge.

* * *

_"This is the captain speaking," _the voice of William Riker came over the intercom across the ship, sounding like the voice of the god he had become to many of the ship's lower-level officers. _"Senior officers are to meet in my Ready Room in five minutes."_

On the bridge, an immediate transformation began to take place. Deck officers appeared in turbolifts as swiftly as they could get there, and replaced the senior staff who were already on the bridge. Among the turbolift crew were other senior staffers, who'd been doing other things throughout the massive ship. In the captain's chair, Lieutenant James "Dop" Raker let one corner of his mouth turn up a little. He was known to the bridge crew, and most of the rest of the ship, as "Dop" because his name was perilously close to that of his captain's, and because "Doppelganger" was too long for a nickname. Also like his captain, Raker was command material; he had stood the last watch in the captain's seat (while First Officer M'Elahn of the House of Korg was gone on his frequent diplomatic missions, Captain Riker often had members of the junior staff take the conn, so long as he was nearby to take it back should something important rise), and now he would get to do so a little longer while the suits had their meeting.

* * *

"It's about the Romulans," Riker said as soon as everyone had taken their seats. He looked around the table at the staff he had spent the last year and a half (and, in the case of Deanna, a good deal longer), hoping they were up to whatever task Starfleet was about to give them, fairly confident that they were. After all, it had been the crew of the _Titan_ who had initiated the first set of peace talks, after the destabilization and remaking of the Neutral Zone. It had, in fact, been this very crew which had discovered – during the longest and most informationally cooperative diplomatic mission with the Empire – the fuller nature of the four Romulan "factions".

It was known to Starfleet that the Romulans and the Vulcans shared a common ancestor. While no one was sure how far back their split went, everyone knew that at one time, they had been one people. Unlike the Vulcans, however, the Romulan species, somewhere along the line, had begun experiencing rapid evolutionary changes in their DNA. As with all changes in evolution, these came primarily due to where a particular "faction" of Romulans was located. On Romulus, the two factions (those living in the northern and southern hemispheres) had both developed smooth foreheads, though those in the northern hemisphere had little or no body hair, and those in the southern had plenty. On Remus, both factions had developed marked ridging in their bone structure; one area's inhabitants had escaped with only a V-shaped alteration on their cranial wall and pale skin (Remus was called the "dark" planet for a reason), while the other faction, having become for a very long time cave dwellers, had gradually evolved into something almost fearsome to behold.

The history of the Romulan Empire, as it was explained to the _Titan _diplomatic crew then, was a circular bloodbath, with different factions among the four taking power at different times. As the centuries passed, one would overthrow the Empire, re-create it, then set about the process of losing it over a few hundred years. A century before Riker was born, the smooth-foreheaded inhabitants of Romulus ruled the Empire. Twenty years or so before he was born, this changed. Now the V-headed Romulans ruled, they of the paler skin and the less-popular planet. And two years ago, the cave-dweller Remans had nearly come to power in the Empire. Racism and classism had not changed much for the Romulans, it seemed.

The cause of these remarkable and swift changes in the various factions was the Romulan sun. Just as any living physical being has flaws which may occasionally show themselve, the primary star of the Rihannsu sector was subject to the occasional breakout of intense patches of solar radiation. It was as if the sun sometimes got a rash of acne. Of course, "occasional" and "sometimes" in this case meant every five to six thousand years, and in the universe of the smaller creature, that is a very long time indeed.

"We've gotten word on the condition of the Romulan sun," Riker said, "and the solar shift is going to occur very soon."

"How soon?" Deanna asked from his side.

"At most, a month," Will said gravely. Around the table, there were nothing but silent stares for a long moment. Then Chief Engineer Richard Duncan spoke up.

"And why are they just _now_ finding out about it?"

"They may not be," Riker said, leaning forward on his elbows. "Just because they've let us in to get a little cozy doesn't mean they entirely trust us. You've got to remember, Praetor Donatra is still Romulan first and foremost. She's been raised to distrust the Federation and all it stands for. One's upbringing does not leave over night, you know."

"But Will," Deanna said – she was still the only senior officer allowed to call him that, since Riker had not spent enough time with his first officer for them to be on a first-name basis (and besides, he liked calling M'Elahn "Number One", for sentimental reasons) – "they have to know that the next period of solar activity is going to change their evolutionary course yet again."

"They do," Riker agreed. "But there's not a lot they can do about it. Evacuating the planets is out of the question. It would take too much time, and the security risks to an empire which is only now beginning to make friends with its neighbors is too great. They could never be more vulnerable to attack than at that moment."

"So they're just going to let the Romulan people take the hit, then," Lieutenant Commander Paul Weston (who was, incidentally, the husband of the _U.S.S. Ascension_'s first officer) said, clearly not pleased.

"It's not the first time," Riker said. "But before we paint the villain mask on the Praetor or any of her deligates, let's focus on something. The message I received came from Admiral Beckworth back at Starfleet Command. He, in turn, received it from a source planted in the Cardassian government. Apparently, their spy networks are better than ours when it comes to getting things out of the Tal Shiar."

"No wonder about that," Doctor Janice Tan grumbled. "They got their positions solidified during the Dominion War, no doubt."

"And also during the Bek'Tal revolution attempt," Riker reminded her, nodding in a way that indicated he was pleased with the intelligence sitting at this table. "Now, Admiral Beckworth is trusting this information with me, and I'm trusting it with you. It's important that I be clear about this. We've not had _any_ word from Praetor Donatra. Until we do, or until Starfleet decides that it's time to act, the information I've just shared with you does not leave this room."

"Permission to speak freely, sir?" the chief engineer asked. Riker nodded at him. "Sir, why? First of all, surely every Romulan knows about the solar changes, and in that case, our spy networks are going to be riddled with information on it, which won't surprise the Praetor at all. Second of all, even if we _did_ tell them we knew about it, what could we do? Send them a subspace greeting card that says: sorry you're having a bad day?" The engineer, spent, leaned back and spread his hands. He had learned that with Captain Riker, such outbursts were welcome relievers of tension, if placed correctly. Riker's smile in his direction indicated that Duncan had hit the nail on the head.

"To answer your first question," Riker said, "we're still in a delicate position with the Romulans. They _want_ to trust us, and I think Praetor Donatra does, but it's very hard for them to let down their guard, so to speak. To take advantage of our spy networks now, over so important an issue, would seem very patronizing to the Romulans. And that's something we just don't want. As to the second question, the answer is a lot." He looked at Deanna, and for what seemed a long moment, they appeared to share thoughts."

"We know how to fix it, don't we?" Deanna said at last. Riker nodded, and the grin he gave her – and the rest of the senior officers – fell just short of reaching his eyes.


	12. A Holodeck

**9.**

**A Holodeck**

The retirement ceremony for Captain Picard was well under way. The open-air coliseum boasted massive blue and white flags bearing the emblem of the United Federation of Planets, which flapped regally in the breeze over the heads of the eight or nine hundred-person crowd. Down at the lectern, Admiral Fossey was in the middle of his speech, gesticulating with one hand as he spoke.

"Fourscore and seven years ago, our Fathers brought forth upon this continent a new nation, conceived in liberty, and dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal. Now we are engaged in a great…"

The crowd looked on, rapt with attention as the speech continued. From high up in the thirty-seventh row of the bleachers – well beyond where the rest of the crowd actually reached – sat Gul Madred and Professor Moriarty, watching the show with eagerness.

"Note the security teams on the ground near the stage," Madred was saying. "There will be at least a dozen personnel at all times, walking the grounds and monitoring all activity with PADDs."

"That doesn't seem like a particularly large number," Moriarty said, raising an eyebrow at Madred.

"No, it's not. Picard is a well-respected officer of the Federation, but he's not a dignitary or highly-placed political figure. At least, not on _this_ planet. Nevertheless, the unknown factor is this: how many security people will be in the crowd, posing as ordinary people?"

"And you don't know the answer?" Moriarty said.

"No. There were only so many things I was able to discover about this event before it became too dangerous to prod further. Remember, if anyone finds out that I've been looking into it, they'll change everything, and the whole plan dies."

"I see," said Moriarty, reaching into his coat pocket for a cigar. "Then I suppose we must assume that there will be at least as many undercover security members as there are on the grounds."

"At least," Madred agreed. "I've decided with this simulation to stack the odds against us even more; I've placed thirty security personnel in the crowd."

"Good," Moriarty said between puffs on the cigar. The smoke curled around Madred's face, but had no smell and no consistency, because it wasn't real. He had heard of hologram projection technology which could replicate smells as well as visual and tactile sensations, but had never witnessed it yet. "Best to be over-prepared. So, what are we waiting for?"

"In real life," Madred said, "we will be waiting for a key phrase in the admiral's speech. Since we don't have that speech yet, we're waiting for me to signal the next part of the program. Computer, begin Chapter Two."

At first, it seemed that nothing had changed. The people still sat, silently looking down at the stage which held, among other important people, Captain Picard of the _Enterprise_. The flags continued to flutter in the artificial breeze, and the admiral gesticulated his way through the Gettysburg Address.

Then, suddenly, a burst of disruptor fire lanced down from somewhere above, striking a little way up into the bleachers. It was a large green beam, half a meter thick, and two or three people were vaporized instantly. Beneath them, Madred and Moriarty saw the entire scene erupt into chaos. The security team on the ground rushed the stage as another beam shot down. This time it hit the stage, which had been protected by a beaming shield; the shield collapsed visibly under the energetic stress of the beam, and a chunk of the stage went up in cinders.

"Computer, freeze program," Madred said, and got up. Moriarty followed him down the steps toward the frozen carnage below. "Now here," he said, gesturing up to the disruptor beam above their heads, "is the diversion. A cloaked ship, just outside the atmosphere, using pinpoint disruptors – what more could you ask for in a diversion?"

Moriarty didn't answer him for a moment, just stared at the frozen image in front of him.

"Is it necessary to kill the people in the audience?" he said.

"I didn't think you would mind that," Madred said.

"I don't. I simply asked if it's necessary. By killing Federation citizens, you're upping the ante in this game of yours."

"The game is _ours_, Professor," Madred said, with just a touch of menace in his voice, "and anyway, yes, I do think it's necessary. There are times when you have to send a message, and this is one of those times. Besides, the ship in question will be a cloaked Romulan vessel, so right off the Federation should be turning in the wrong direction for answers. I don't know about you, but I want to have a little…time to spend with Picard, and that can only be achieved if they don't know who to look for or where to look for them."

"Indeed," Moriarty said, turning back to face the scene. "All right, please do go on."

"At this moment, during the brief ten or twelve seconds before the beaming shield comes back online, you will slip through the crowd and onto the platform, grab the good captain, and the two of you will be transported away, like so. Computer, resume program."

The action resumed; both Madred and Moriarty watched as pandemonium lit the stadium from the ground floor up. People were jumping out of their seats and running in every direction; the security team on the ground began forming a perimeter to keep people from approaching the stage. And on the stage, admirals and captains alike dove for cover.

All except for Picard, who suddenly stiffened mid-stance, then began moving backward in a maneuver which should not have been possible for a human to do. A second later, he de-materialized into a shimmering cloud of particles, and was gone.

"Freeze program," Moriarty said, looking up at the air suspiciously. After a moment, he looked back at Gul Madred. "I always feel a little bit nervous saying that," he said.

"I would imagine so. What do you think of the demonstration?"

"It's all fine, assuming the ending was what I think it was."

"And what would that be?" Madred asked.

"I assume I'm to be invisible."

* * *

**Author's Note:** I must sincerely apologize to fans of the Reality series; I've been away for a long time, and I'm sure that many of you out there gave up hope that this story would ever be finished, let alone the idea of there being any adventures to come. The major reason for my absence has been that I've had to focus my creative ambition in other venues. One of the results of this is that I now have published my first for-sale novel (for those interested, the details are on my website, which you can access in my author profile), and have joined that happy Zen state of knifing one's way toward some unknown top. Meanwhile, while will continue to focus primarily on career-related writing, I wanted to let you know that I will continue posting chapters to "Mirage". And when that's done, I expect I'll have to get started on the next one, because Captain Allen and his crew have a lot of work to do.


End file.
